Month: June 2015

Introduction

aws-must is a tool, which helps in managing Amazon CloudFormation templates using using YAML and Mustache templates. Deploying aws-must starts with copying an existing CloudFormation template as a root Mustache template, and continues with extracting YAML configuration data from the template and with stepwise refinement of the templates. Refinement steps include migrating configurations to YAML, refractoring complex templates into Mustache partials, using YAML anchors to express references across CloudFormation elements, tangling documentation and template implementation, and allowing configuration to control AWS resource provisioning.

Introduction

Amazon CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators an easy way to create and manage a collection of related AWS resources. It uses JSON -formatted templates for defining services to be managed together as a “stack”.

However, the CF -templates soon become quite convoluted as the complexity of the infrastructure stack increases. In addition, the JSON format adds more to the management difficulties.

This blog entry discusses, how to deal with the complexity of CloudFormation templates, and proposes a solution separating configuration data from AWS templates.

Introduction

It is easy to start using Amazon Web Services (AWS) by simply launching an EC2 instance on Amazon Web Services Management Console. Currently, AWS console lists 40 services to choose from, and managing anything more than a single EC2 instance with only the console becomes soon too laborious. Consequently, Amazon offers also a number of other services and tools, which help in managing AWS infrastructure.

It is important to understand the options Amazon has available for service management in order to avoid waste e.g. delays due to too steep learning curve, rework due to wrong tool selection, excessive work due to not using tools correctly, etc.

This blog entry summarizes tools and services Amazon offers for infrastructure management, and presents a personal opinion, and rationale, how to start using them.